Aides, ‘Scandal’ stars on D.C.’s toughest job

Washington literally met Hollywood on Friday as two stars of the hit TV political show “Scandal” shared a POLITICO stage with their real-life counterparts.

At a special celebrity edition of POLITICO’s Playbook breakfast held ahead of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, former Clinton White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers and former Bush chief of staff Andrew Card appeared with their “Scandal” colleagues Dan Bucatinsky and Jeff Perry.

Asked if there was a problem Pope couldn’t fix, Perry responded that Donald Sterling, “the owner of the [Los Angeles] Clippers, got himself into a remarkable scandal and an awfully interesting one …” Several on the panel noted that she could, however, help Sterling on the public relations front. The NBA has banned Sterling for life over racist remarks that went viral.

POLITICO’s chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen and Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Cosmopolitan Joanna Coles moderated the panel. The conversation served up a blend of “Scandal” commentary and speculation, plus reflections on real-life White House responsibilities. Card called the job as press secretary “one of the most difficult jobs in the White House.”

“The press secretary should know enough, but not too much,” he said at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in downtown Washington. The individual can “never misrepresent to the public, or they’d lose credibility with the public. … It’s a very challenging job.”

“It used to be, there was a news cycle, you’d have the morning papers, then you’d have the evening broadcast. … the papers would finish their stories for the day, hit their deadlines and be done. Everyone would go have a drink, have some dinner, those were great days,” she said. “Now it just goes on and on and on.”

When Allen noted some of the “obscenity-laden” conversations between the White House and reporters, Myers responded, to laughs: “I think there’s two kinds of obscenity-laden conversations. One is just one that’s laden with obscenities, and one is where you’re calling the person obscene names. I think the latter’s pretty rare; I think the former’s almost every conversation you have with someone at the White House.”

After Card reflected on some of the details of his job under President George W. Bush — “I wanted him to have time to eat, sleep and be merry” — Bucatinsky, who on the show is in a relationship with Perry, the fictional chief of staff, remarked that the dynamic between the president and the chief of staff is “spousal.”

“It’s a very similar role, in a way, that a spouse has,” he said of the chief of staff job. “It’s great fodder for a television show.”

Bucatinsky, who said one of his favorite lines in the show is when he said he “cannot believe I fell in love with a Republican,” explained his process for mulling a bipartisan relationship.

“It makes you think about other things,” he said. “Power, leverage, passion. Clearly, James fell in love with something very powerful about Cyrus, [he was] able to put the political side aside.”

Preceding the event, Allen also interviewed Youtube sensation “Kid President” Bobby Novak, as well as YouTube’s Robert Kyncl. Novak has met his share of celebrities —including President Barack Obama, whom he called “awesome” — but said that kissing Beyonce is the coolest thing he’s done in his capacity as “Kid President.”

Novak got a chance to turn the tables on his interviewer — using the weekend’s nickname “Nerd Prom” as his inspiration.

“If this weekend is Nerd Prom, does that make you Nerd Prom King?” Novak asked to laughs from the audience.

The actors who play Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Díaz) — both member “gladiators” of Olivia Pope’s team — also made surprise appearances at the event.